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Heavy Montréal: Eagle Tears let their vocals soar

They don't want to be labelled as heavy metal, but they do have a three-guitar attack and pounding drums

“We’re not a heavy metal band,” says Hal Jaques of Eagle Tears. “At least not in today’s sense of the word. If we were around in 1970 we’d probably be considered a metal band.”

Photograph by: courtesy Eagle Tears

MONTREAL - It’s been almost three years since Prince graced Montreal with his purple presence. But just because it’s been a while since we heard what sounds like when doves cry, that doesn’t mean we can’t get our fill of weeping birds. Just head on down to Heavy Montréal this weekend, where the band kicking things off will be local boys Eagle Tears.

The band formed in the fall of 2011, almost as a joke at first. A bunch of guys sat around a bonfire in cottage country, trying to come up with silly band names, and eventually thought it would be funny to start a group called Eagle Tears. After a few jams back in the city, they started realizing that what they were coming up with was so good, it might be time to bring in a singer. Luckily, it was around then that they bumped into acquaintance Hal Jaques, a veteran of the Montreal scene, primarily as a bassist. Though never before a frontman.

After a few lineup changes, the band and their new vocalist started hitting stages in Montreal. But what’s brought them to their biggest stage yet, one they’ll share with the likes of Metallica, The Offspring and Three Days Grace this weekend, was almost a total fluke. In May, the band won the En Route to Heavy battle of the bands, earning the opening half-hour slot of the titular festival.

“Entering that contest was sort of an afterthought kind of thing,” said Jaques. “It obviously turned out better than we thought it would.”

Despite their presence on the Heavy Montréal bill, it’s a bit of an odd fit. While Eagle Tears’ music is marked by a three-guitar attack and bashing drums, the vocals are tuneful and harmonized, and the six strings tend to soar more than they roar. It’s less Megadeth and more Foghat than anything. But Jaques maintains that they share the same spirit as some of the more extreme bands set to play, because their music can be traced back to the same sources.

“We’re not a heavy metal band,” said Jaques bluntly. “At least not in today’s sense of the word. If we were around in 1970 we’d probably be considered a metal band. I would say our influences are bands like Thin Lizzy and Black Sabbath and a lot of current metal would probably say their roots are the same. I think maybe our influences are a little more obvious to that classic, throwback kind of vibe.”

If the metalheads who came to mosh can’t dig the Eagle Tears sound, it wouldn’t be anything new to the band. With their unironic long hair and even less ironic (and virtuosic) guitar solos, the band is hardly representative of what has become the Montreal sound, best exemplified by indie darlings Arcade Fire. It’s made them a bit of an odd group out on the local scene.

“It’s tough. Montreal is sort of known for that indie thing, and there’s a great scene here for that. There’s also a pretty big metal scene here as well,” said Jaques. “There’s a few sort of rock bands around, but that’s the sort of thing we struggle with, is to find rock bands in the city that we fit with.”

While fitting in might be tough now, it could be that the scene will be flocking to fit in with them fairly soon. Aside from winning Road to Heavy Montréal, their singles Lady Bison and Sweet Little Thing have gotten airplay on CHOM, and there’s a tour and album release party in the works (fitting in with their retro esthetic, the album will be launched on vinyl as well as a digital download at an as yet unset date in August). Still, while playing Heavy Montréal is a huge accomplishment, they know there’s a lot more than an eight-hour difference in set start times between them and Metallica status. That makes it easy to keep their success in perspective.

“It started off as a fun thing to do on Saturday afternoons. It sounds sort of cheesy and cliché to say, but it’s always about making great rock songs,” said Jaques. “Things have been slowly changing, but we’re trying to keep our heads on our shoulders and not go into it like businessmen.”

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